Love and the Marquis

Chapter One ~ 1833-1

Chapter One ~ 1833The Earl of Kingsclere walked restlessly about the very impressive salon, not noticing the many magnificent pictures, the china, which in itself was worth a fortune, or the array of hothouse flowers that decorated every table.

There was a frown between his eyes and the lines on his very handsome face that had beguiled so many women were sharply etched.

He was worried and it showed in every movement he made and in every breath he drew.

He walked to the grog tray in the corner, which one would not have expected to find in such a very feminine room and poured himself out a glass of champagne.

He drank deeply as if he was in need of it and then with what appeared almost a reckless gesture he raised his glass and toasted aloud,

“To the future!”

As his voice echoed round the room, the door opened and the butler announced,

“Lady Imeldra, my Lord.”

The Earl started and then stared incredulously as a young girl, for she was no more, came running down the room towards him to fling her arms around his neck.

“Papa! I was so afraid that you might be away when I arrived.”

“Imeldra!” the Earl exclaimed. “What are you doing here? I was not expecting you.”

“I know that, Papa. I have run away!”

Her arms tightened around him and she kissed her father on both cheeks so that it was impossible for him to answer her.

Then he put his hands on her shoulders to hold her away from him so he could scrutinise her.

“You are lovely,” he smiled. “Far lovelier than I expected you to be.”

“Oh, darling Papa, I did so hope you would think so.”

“You are very like your mother,” the Earl said in a low voice, almost as if he spoke to himself. “And she was the loveliest woman I have ever seen.”

Imeldra would have kissed him again, but he held her firmly from him and saying,

“You have a great deal of explaining to do. Why have you run away from school?”

“To see you!”

The Earl’s eyes twinkled.

“I don’t believe that is the only reason.”

“Actually it is not,” Imeldra replied. “I was in trouble and I suspect they will sack me anyway.”

The Earl laughed as if he could not help it.

“That sounds more like the truth. Now come and tell me all about it. Would you like a glass of champagne to sustain you?”

“May I really have one?”

“I imagine you are old enough now and when you arrived I was just drinking a toast to the future.”

She looked at him questioningly.

“That sounds most unlike you, Papa, and I have never known you to drink when you are alone.”

The Earl did not answer. He merely poured her out a very small amount of champagne and filled his own glass again.

Then he walked to the window where the pale early April sunshine was just percolating through the clouds.

Then he sat down.

There were two chairs and, as Imeldra sat down opposite him, his eyes were on her hair, appreciating that the sun picked out the red lights amongst the gold.

He gave a deep sigh.

“You are beautiful, which is what I so hoped you would be.”

It was not a compliment. He was merely stating a fact that Imeldra’s eyes seemed to hold the light in them as if somebody had lit a candle within her.

They were very unusual eyes, large, liquid and their depth seemed to hold a mystery that the Earl knew would make a man look and look again as he attempted to solve the secret that lay hidden in them.

Then, as if he forced himself to be practical, he enquired,

“Now tell me why you are here.”

“Do you know how old I am, Papa?”

“Not old enough to leave school.”

“But I am! And it is very humiliating to be the oldest pupil by several months.”

“Is that true?” the Earl enquired.

“I promise you it is and honestly, Papa, I can learn no more there.”

She gave him a quick glance as if she expected him to argue with her and, when he did not, she went on,

“I am the Head Girl. I am top in every subject and it was really embarrassing last Speech Day when I won almost every prize. Finally I am not prepared to spend the Easter holidays alone.”

“Alone?” the Earl asked sharply.

“Oh, Papa, you must remember that schools have holidays. All the girls are going home next week except for me.”

“But I thought that something was always arranged for you in the holidays.”

“I have been fortunate that one of my friends has always invited me home with her, but now I have no invitations.”

“Why ever not?” the Earl asked mystified.

Imeldra’s eyes twinkled as his had done and there was a mischievous smile on her lips as she asked,

“Why do you think?”

“If I said what is in my mind, it would make you very conceited.”

“Yes, that is the reason. I am too pretty. My friends are grown up and they dislike seeing the young men who they think are courting them transferring their attention to me.”

“I suppose it is understandable,” the Earl murmured.

“Of course it is, dearest Papa, I am your daughter and – Mama’s.”

Imeldra’s voice softened as she spoke of her mother and she was almost sure that she caught a look of sadness in her father’s expression before he remarked,

“I am beginning to understand your reasons for leaving, Imeldra, but your decision to run away could not have come at a worse moment.”

“Why?”

For a moment the Earl seemed to feel for his words.

Then he said almost recklessly,

“Because I am doing exactly the same thing!”

Imeldra sat bolt upright.

“Oh, no, Papa, not again?”

“I don’t know what you mean by that,” her father answered. “This is different.”

“Dearest Papa, you know as well as I do that each new love affair of yours always seems different until you grow bored.”

The Earl rose to his feet as if it was impossible to sit still and he walked across the room and back again before he said,

“All right, Imeldra, I am in a mess and there is nothing I can do about it. So there is no use in your arguing with me.”

“I would not do that. But I realise now that I should never have left you.”

“Of course you had to leave me,” the Earl countered.

“You were too old to live the life I was leading. Now I think of it, it is a good thing that I am going abroad.”

“Going abroad?”

‘Tomorrow.”

“And – who is going with – you?”

It seemed for a moment as if the Earl was reluctant to answer truthfully and then he said,

“Lady Bullington,”

Imeldra thought for a moment before she answered,

“I have read about her in the newspapers. She is very beautiful.”

“Very,” the Earl agreed dryly.

“But, Papa, how can you be so foolish as to run away with her?”

“Lord Bullington intends to divorce her and so I have to do the gentlemanly thing and give her my name.”

“But that will take years, Papa. It always does.”

“I know, I know!” the Earl said testily. “But we are going to live in Venice where I have bought a Palazzo.”

“How lovely! That is something I have always wanted you to have.”

“But you know,” the Earl went on as if she had not spoken, “that you cannot come there until I am married and even then it would be best if you stayed away.”

Imeldra was silent, but he saw the hurt expression in her eyes and he sat down again to say,

“Dearest child, you have to be sensible about this. When I sent you to school, I told you, and you seemed to then understand, that I could not allow my way of life, enjoyable though it might have been from my point of view, to spoil yours.”

“We had such fun together, Papa,” Imeldra said. “It has been ghastly without you these two years, but I believed – as you promised – that I could come back to – you once I was educated.”

“If you remember,” the Earl contradicted her, “what I promised was that, when you were old enough, you should be presented to Society and I would do everything to see that you are accepted as your mother was when she was your age.”

“But I did not think that I would not be with – you.”

“You know perfectly well that the hostesses of London who would welcome you would not entertain me,” the Earl pointed out.

“There are plenty of other people who would,” Imeldra insisted stubbornly.

“Not the sort of people who I want you to meet and not the sort of people of whom your mother would approve and, more important still, not the sort of people where you will meet the sort of man I want you to marry.”

Imeldra was silent,

She knew that the reason why, two years ago, her father had sent her away from him to school was that he had found her struggling in the arms of a young Nobleman who was trying to kiss her.

The Earl had knocked him out. Then, before he could recover his consciousness he had thrown him bodily down the steps of the Château they were living in in France and told the servants never to admit him again.

But Imeldra, as her father realised, was growing up.

Nearly sixteen, she was no longer a child and it was a mistake for her to associate with his friends, either male or female.

She had therefore gone to school in England and, because she loved her father, she had agreed to work hard and try to become, in his words, ‘a perfect Lady.’

‘. But she had counted the days until she could be with him again and had no idea of his social ambitions for her, which would mean permanent exile from the one person she loved more than anyone else in the whole world.

Now her eyes filled with tears as she said in a broken little voice,

“Oh, Papa – how can you be so – cruel to – me?”

“I know that is how it seems, my precious one,” the Earl answered, “but it is because I love you and because amongst my treasures you are the most perfect of them all, that I cannot have you soiled and damaged by the life I lead.”

“I love your life, Papa, It has always been such fun moving around the world with you, meeting so many different people, some of whom I admit were very strange and some very charming and unusual,”

“Those sort of friends are perfectly all right for a man,” the Earl told her, “and if you had been a boy, it would not have mattered in the slightest way if you had what is known as a ‘Cosmopolitan education’. But for a girl it is disastrous.”

“Why? Why?” Imeldra asked.

“Because, my dearest, you have to marry and, if you think I want you married to one of the riff-raff who will not only fall in love with you but be well aware that I am a rich man, you are very much mistaken!”

“I have no intention of marrying anybody at the moment.”

“Every woman should marry,” the Earl said sharply, “especially someone as beautiful as you. You need a man to look after you and protect you, but the sort of gentleman I want as a son-in-law is not to be found at parties I give. If he is, he will not treat you with respect.”

“Why not?” Imeldra asked.

“Because, my darling one, you cannot touch pitch and not be defiled by it and a man of aristocratic birth, especially an Englishman, wants his wife to be pure and untouched and certainly not to have had a ‘Cosmopolitan education’.”

Imeldra laughed because the way her father spoke sounded so funny. At the same time she knew that in a way he was speaking the truth.

When she had last been with him, she had become aware for the first time that, although she was dressed as a young girl and her hair was loose over her shoulders, the expression in men’s eyes was different from what it had been before and they no longer treated her as a child.

Aloud she asserted,

“I cannot lose you, Papa! You know you are the only person I belong to.”

“That is not true,” the Earl answered. “You have a great number of relations and I have already been in communication with them. I have in fact arranged that your Aunt Lucy will present you at Court.”